Signed by the P5 + Germany and mediated by the EU’s foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton, the deal achieved with Iran on the latter’s nuclear programme has important implications for regional…

Martin E Dempsey warns the fallout of the Arab Spring will take a long time to clear.
Glenn Fawcett
November 20, 2013

At a meeting at the Wall Street Journal this week, Martin E Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that the United States’ ability to exercise influence in the Middle East had significantly…

Lebanon is bearing the brunt of the protracted refugee crisis that has emerged as a result of the Syrian civil war.
EPA/Wael Hamzeh
Oktober 29, 2013

The recent sinking of a refugee boat bound for Australia off Java, which had 68 Lebanese on board, highlights the complexity, magnitude and reach of the Syrian civil war. The effect of the ongoing war…

Syrian rebels have dealt another blow to the prospects of a peace summit in Geneva in November. On Sunday, 22 of the armed groups fighting on the ground, including four of the most powerful, issued an…

Is Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani proposing a new way forward in thawing the relations between his country and the United States?
EPA/Brendan McDermid
September 26, 2013

As the presidents of Iran and the United States converged on the United Nations headquarters in New York this week, optimism seemed to be in the air. Washington and Tehran have eyed each other icily ever…

US president Barack Obama has been criticised recently for not taking a hardline enough approach on military action in Syria.
EPA/Michael Reynolds
September 17, 2013

Being the most powerful man in the world isn’t what it used to be. US president Barack Obama is currently being ridiculed for his apparent inability to decide how to handle the conflict in Syria. American…

Stand by - on a screen near you - for the all-too familiar televisual firework display which means that the US and its allies are forging ahead with the threatened air strikes on Syria. As politicians…

Sorouq lost her sisters to bomb attacks in Syria, but the best way to help is to stay away.
Save the Children / Hedinn Halldorsson
Agustus 28, 2013

A grief-stricken father tenderly hands over the shrouded body of his tiny daughter to be placed in the mass grave. Surgical masks are being worn in the hope that they will ward off the chemical death that…

Allegations of chemical weapon use by the Assad regime is leading to calls for Western intervention.
EPA/STR
Agustus 28, 2013

Those who thought US president Barack Obama was chastened by his failure to subdue the Taliban in Afghanistan and his decision to “lead from behind” in Libya expected the White House to be less overtly…

Playing it safe? No reformists or women in Hassan Rowhani’s cabinet.
Wikimedia Commons
Agustus 8, 2013

Nearly two months after his unexpected victory in the first round of the Iranian presidential elections of June, Hassan Rowhani has finally assumed office and brought a formal end to the contested eight…

Yemen has two insurgencies, an AQAP threat and infighting among the armed forces.
Wikimedia
Agustus 7, 2013

Yemen is once again at the centre of a major terrorist threat. The Yemeni government has announced the uncovering of a major Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) plot aimed at the country’s critical…

Millions of people are being displaced across the region.
Freedom House
Juli 30, 2013

It is about 100 years since the then-imperial powers of Britain and France first demarcated the boundaries between Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Mandate Palestine. Now, it looks like those borders are…

When US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that talks about talks to revive peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians would begin soon in Washington, veteran commentators greeted the…

As Islamic jihadists become increasingly central to the Syrian conflict, the once secular revolution led by the Free Syrian Army (fighter pictured) loses support in the eyes of the world.
EPA
Juli 27, 2013

In the two years since its inception, the image of the Syrian civil war has veered dramatically away from its revolutionary, secular origins. What began as a response to the brutal repression of peaceful…

Parliamentary elections for the 65 member Kuwait’s National Assembly (Majlis al-Umma) are set for this Saturday. Over 410 candidates are contesting the 50 seats elected by popular vote in the oldest and…

In the past four weeks, a major political earthquake seems to have hit the Middle East, where three key regional constituencies: Iran, Qatar and Egypt, experienced more or less unexpected changes of leadership…

President Obama’s confirmation that the United States would begin arming Syrian rebels has prompted an urgent debate about both the legality and the effectiveness of the decision. The announcement, ahead…

Iran’s ruling class have engineered the result of elections to their favoured candidate - will Friday’s presidential election be any different?
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
Juni 13, 2013

Iranian elections have often been the country’s Achilles heel, or as Iranians say, pashneye achil. Since the Islamic Republic of Iran’s inception in 1979, the ruling clergy has incorporated electoral procedures…

Palestinians from Fatah (yellow flags) and Hamas (green flags) celebrated the reconciliation agreement between the factions in 2011, but little progress in the region has been made since.
EPA/Mohammed Saber
Mei 1, 2013

Recently, Musheer al-Masri, a Hamas member and spokesperson, blamed his Palestinian political rivals Fatah yet again for hindering the implementation of the Palestinian Reconciliation Agreement. The agreement…